Saudi Prince Alwaleed Boosts Stake In Twitter Inc to 5.17 Percent

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Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, chairman and majority shareholder of the investment management firm Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), increased his stake in Twitter.

Prince Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding now own 34, 948,975 shares or 5.17% of the outstanding common stock of Twitter based on his 13G filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The filing indicated that Prince Alwaleed directly owns 14,914,450 shares and indirectly under a revocable trust 15,185,628 shares of the social media company.

Kingdom Holding directly owns 1,811,771 shares and indirectly 3,037,126 shares through its wholly-owned direct subsidiary Kingdom 5-KR-228, Ltd and indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary Kingdom-5-KR-229, both based in the Cayman Islands.

Prince Alwaleed is the second largest shareholder of Twitter

Kingdom Holding and Prince Alwaleed increased his position in Twitter over the past six weeks, and the combined market value of the stake is $1 billion.

The Saudi Prince and his firm is the second largest shareholder of Twitter. Prince Alwaleed started investing in the social media company in 2011 prior to its initial public offering (IPO). He initially invested $300 million in Twitter

Twitter officially named Jack Dorsey as permanent CEO

On Monday, the board of directors of Twitter officially appointed its co-founder Jack Dorsey as permanent CEO. He will no longer serve as Chairman, but will remain a member of the company’s Board. He also remains as CEO of Square.

The board of directors said Mr. Dorsey has extensive experience with technology companies, and they believe that he can revive Twitter.

Mr. Dorsey said he will focus on building teams that move fast and learn faster, and they will work forward on making Twitter easy to understand by anyone in the world. He also promised to do whatever it to ensure the company’s growth.

The board of directors also appointed Adam Bain as chief operating officer. Gartner analyst Brian Blau commented that the appointment of Mr. Dorsey as CEO and Mr. Bain as COO may be a good partnership if both executives perform well in their roles.

“If Adam can execute, and Jack can come in and focus on the next thing, the next product—that is a good relationship,” said Blau.

Prince Alwaleed previously criticized the management of Twitter, and he was against Mr. Dorsey replacing Dick Costolo, when he stepped down as CEO in June. The Saudi Prince said Twitter needs a new leader with extensive marketing experience, and Mr. Dorsey should focus on managing Square.

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